


Consequence

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Feelings Realization, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday, Other, Prompt Fill, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), categorized as 'other' bc arum is nonbinary when i write him bye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Arum pushes Amaryllis out the door and closes it behind her. He is alone, after that.





	Consequence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLSpacer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLSpacer/gifts).



> To be fair I had already started this, but TheLSpacer prompted me on tumblr for [The way you said “I love you.“ - In awe, the first time you realised it], and it fit too well for me to resist. The angst is NOT my fault this time.
> 
> ... the angst is only PARTLY my fault this time.

Arum waits until Rilla relents. He waits until she leaves the door, waits until he hears her footsteps fade. He waits until the low thrum of the swamp resumes in her absence. He waits, and he tries unsuccessfully to silence his mind.

 _There are consequences to your actions_ , she says again in his mind, and again, and _again_ , and when he clutches his claws tighter over his face and shakes his head to clear it his mind shifts to _Arum, that_ _’s my home_ , and the way her voice shapes around his name even in distress- and the way it twisted dark with her disapproval-

Consequences, he thinks again. He realizes that he still has a hand clutched over his heart, claws scraping harmlessly over scales.

_There are people that I love there, Arum, just like you love-_

It’s harder to control the cacophony in his mind without the softening, steadying influence of the Keep. Harder to control the way everything seems to be spiraling around him. The Keep is silent in a way it hasn’t been in the whole of his memory. Silent of its gentle rhythms and lilts, and now silent of other footsteps, another heartbeat, breaths of laughter and stubborn voice-

 _-just like you love_ -

He hadn’t realized how much he had grown used to her presence.

- _like you love_ -

“No,” he says out loud, appalled at the way his voice shakes despite the lack of witness. “I don’t- I-”

- _you love_ -

Her eyes are so vivid in his memory, dark and blade-sharp and incisive, eyes that see through him, and if she were still here, now, she would see through this as well. See through to the very heart of him.

He sinks, his back to the door, until he can lower his head to his knees, wrapping his arms around himself until he is as closed off from the world outside as he can be. Until he is safe from everything but memory.

“I love her,” he says, a raw whispered admission heard by no one but himself, and the world tilts around him, setting everything askew. “I love her.”

And she is gone.

And soon, so too will be her entire kind, and Arum will be the cause.


End file.
